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Falcon 9

SpaceX's partially reusable two-stage rocket, the workhorse launch vehicle for satellite deployment and crewed Dragon missions to the ISS.

Known aliases

  • Falcon-9
  • Falcon 9 rocket
  • Falcon 9 upper stage
  • Falcon Heavy

Current stories

scienceConfirmed3 publishers

SpaceX's CRS-35 Dragon is due to dock at the ISS after a 51-hour chase

SpaceX's CRS-35 cargo Dragon is scheduled to dock with the ISS around 11 a.m. EDT on Oct. 15 with more than 6,000 pounds of food, research and hardware. Space.com's preview says the supplies are mainly for the four astronauts of Crew-13.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 37%
Operator
Operator 51%
Investor
Investor 12%

Reality

Evidence82
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence85
scienceConfirmed3 publishers

SpaceX's CRS-35 cargo flight takes lab-grown brain models to the space station

NASA will send four biology studies to the space station on SpaceX's 35th resupply flight, including brain tissue models flown for five weeks. NASA ties the work to astronaut health on long missions, but the readouts are mostly from tissue, plants and station surfaces.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 18%
Operator
Operator 65%
Investor
Investor 17%

Reality

Evidence35
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence60
scienceOne report1 publisher

SpaceX cargo resupply mission carries test of building artificial retinas in orbit

NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than Oct. 13 to fly more than 6,300 pounds of cargo to the space station on a Dragon capsule. On board are experiments testing whether microgravity builds better artificial retinas and heart tissue models.

Publishers:nasa.gov

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives55
Confidence65
investConfirmed4 publishers

Google's first orbital TPU test puts one server's worth of chips on a SpaceX rideshare

Google is flying four TPUs, roughly one server's worth of compute on a kilowatt of solar power, in Project Suncatcher's first orbital test. The satellite can show whether the chips survive heat and radiation in orbit, a smaller question than whether computing there is cheaper.

Perspective Coverage

4 publishers
Builder
Builder 40%
Operator
Operator 28%
Investor
Investor 32%

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption8
Hype gap+25
Incentives60
Confidence58
productOne report1 publisher

Rheinmetall launches a single satellite to test whether orbital imagery can feed air-defense networks

Rheinmetall and Argotec put their first jointly built satellite into orbit on October 1 to test space-based early warning for air defense. With a second satellite on the roadmap for 2028, what buyers can evaluate now is how the feed would plug into air-defense networks they already run.

Reality

Evidence35
Adoption8
Hype gap+15
Incentives50
Confidence40
scienceConfirmed5 publishers

Crew-13's Dragon targets a U.S. record with a 7-hour-50-minute trip to the space station

NASA's Crew-13 launched four crew Thursday on a Dragon due to dock at the space station 7 hours 50 minutes later, a U.S. record by NASA's account. NASA stated the record before the docking took place, so it holds only once the 7 p.m. arrival happens.

Perspective Coverage

7 publishers
Builder
Builder 29%
Operator
Operator 54%
Investor
Investor 17%

Reality

Evidence82
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives45
Confidence80
productConfirmed6 publishers

Google's orbital compute paper implies about 1,800 Starship launches in a decade

Google's orbital compute paper needs Starship to lift 370,000 tons to reach $200-a-kilogram launches, about 180 flights a year for a decade. Its first TPU in orbit will run in 15-minute bursts while Google tests whether a satellite can supply a kilowatt of steady power and keep the chip cool.

Perspective Coverage

6 publishers
Builder
Builder 40%
Operator
Operator 31%
Investor
Investor 29%

Reality

Evidence72
Adoption8
Hype gap+22
Incentives62
Confidence68
investOne report1 publisher

Canada Rocket Company's London engine test site would cost a third more than the startup has raised

Canada Rocket Company plans to spend C$30 million on a 50-acre rocket engine test site in London, Ontario, against about C$22.5 million raised since November. Its promise that other Canadian launch firms can test there too depends on a larger round CRC has yet to close.

Publishers:betakit.com

Reality

Evidence35
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+40
Incentives70
Confidence40
scienceOne report1 publisher

NewOrbit's founder puts satellite launch waits at 30 to 36 months, up from about a year

Anatolii Papulov of NewOrbit says satellite launch lead times have reached 30 to 36 months, up from about 12 a year ago. The figure is one start-up's experience, though Quilty Space analyst Caleb Henry also calls the shortage a crisis with several causes besides Falcon 9.

Publishers:newscientist.com

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+25
Incentives35
Confidence45
scienceConfirmed2 publishers

SpaceX Crew-13 will fly stem-cell heart and Parkinson's tissue models to the space station

NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 will fly four astronauts from three agencies to the space station no earlier than Oct. 1. Its research includes human stem-cell-derived heart and Parkinson's tissue models, and their value will depend on how they compare with matched samples kept on the ground.

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+30
Incentives75
Confidence60
scienceConfirmed6 publishers

Starship reaches orbit on its 14th flight, dropping 26 Starlink satellites after losing an engine at liftoff

SpaceX flew Starship to orbit for the first time on September 28, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites despite one of the upper stage's six engines going out at liftoff. The flight moves the vehicle closer to the operational heavy-lift launcher NASA and SpaceX are counting on.

Publishers:livescience.com phys.org scientificamerican.com space.com spaceflightnow.com theconversation.com

Perspective Coverage

6 publishers
Builder
Builder 39%
Operator
Operator 36%
Investor
Investor 25%

Reality

Evidence80
Adoption25
Hype gap+20
Incentives65
Confidence75
productConfirmed12 publishers

Starship's first working payload of 26 Starlink V3 satellites reached orbit on a shortened flight

SpaceX's Starship reached orbit for the first time on September 28 and deployed 26 working Starlink V3 satellites, each built to add 1 Tbps of capacity. Buyers can count on that capacity this quarter, while teams hoping to book Starship for their own payloads have one partial orbital flight to judge it by.

Perspective Coverage

12 publishers
Builder
Builder 31%
Operator
Operator 41%
Investor
Investor 28%

Reality

Evidence78
Adoption25
Hype gap+20
Incentives65
Confidence72
investConfirmed10 publishers

SpaceX puts ten Falcon 9 launches' worth of Starlink capacity on Starship's first orbital attempt

SpaceX's Starship Flight 14 will try to reach orbit for the first time carrying 26 Starlink V3 satellites that together add about 26 Tbps of capacity. For a company valued near $2 trillion, it tests how much one launch can lift, while the cost of each launch still depends on reuse.

Perspective Coverage

12 publishers
Builder
Builder 28%
Operator
Operator 35%
Investor
Investor 37%

Reality

Evidence72
Adoption30
Hype gap+30
Incentives75
Confidence68
buildConfirmed5 publishers

Google's four-TPU MVP satellite tests whether radiation and heat rule out orbital AI compute

Google's MVP satellite takes four TPUs and about 1 kW of solar power into orbit to test whether AI chips survive radiation and shed their own heat. Its results will show whether rebooting away bit flips and cooling through a radiator can carry into the constellations Google has already sketched.

Perspective Coverage

5 publishers
Builder
Builder 44%
Operator
Operator 30%
Investor
Investor 26%

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption3
Hype gap+15
Incentives55
Confidence62
scienceConfirmed5 publishers

LRO photographs the Falcon 9 crater, and a piece of debris becomes a calibration target

NASA measured an 18-meter hole left by a spent upper stage on Aug. 5, and the hunt for it doubled as a live test of impact-prediction tools built for planetary defense.

Perspective Coverage

6 publishers
Builder
Builder 33%
Operator
Operator 58%
Investor
Investor 9%

Reality

Evidence70
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives30
Confidence72
productConfirmed5 publishers

Starcloud raises $250M at $2.3bn because rockets, not GPUs, are the scarce input

The orbital compute startup added an extension to its Series A largely to buy launch capacity before Falcon 9 retires in 2028, according to CEO Philip Johnston.

Perspective Coverage

5 publishers
Builder
Builder 34%
Operator
Operator 26%
Investor
Investor 40%

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption15
Hype gap+45
Incentives70
Confidence60
scienceOne report1 publisher

LandSpace's recovered Zhuque-3 booster puts China one reflight away from rocket reuse

LandSpace has brought a Zhuque-3 booster back to Earth, a first for China, but no Chinese booster has flown twice, and SpaceX has done it hundreds of times. Launch savings come from reflying hardware, and China's 2030 'space power' plan depends on exactly that.

Publishers:newscientist.com

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption10
Hype gap+20
Incentives45
Confidence50
investOne report1 publisher

Stoke Space raises 43% of its lifetime capital in one round to fund a second rocket

Point72 Ventures and Spark Capital led a $1 billion Series E at roughly $10 billion. The money funds two clean-sheet rockets in parallel: Pathfinder in 2027 and the 14-engine Block 2 in 2029.

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption28
Hype gap+20
Incentives70
Confidence58

Earlier coverage

  1. SpaceX's $100B Louisiana pad farm bets on a turnaround Starship has never shown

    Build · August 25, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  2. Starcloud's $250M is a down payment on rockets it cannot yet buy

    Build · August 21, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  3. LandSpace recovers a steel booster while Super Heavy waits on clearance

    Product · August 19, 2026 · Confirmed3 publishers